Many avid hunters and competitive target shooters prefer to reload their cartridges in an effort to attain greater accuracy. A reloading press is conventionally used for this purpose. Typically, the press contains a stationary head for supporting one or more dies used in the reloading process and a coacting movable ram for moving cartridges into and out of the dies. One important aspect of the reloading press is the ability to properly seat a bullet within a shell casing to attain a desired depth of penetration of the bullet into the open casing. It is important that the bullet be axially aligned with the casing as it passes into the neck region of the casing. Any misalignment between the bullet and the casing will result in the casing material becoming distorted and the bullet being improperly seated in assembly. This, of course, results in inaccurate firing of the bullet and oftentimes damages the casing to a point where it cannot be again reloaded.
There have been many attempts to improve seating dies for use in a reloading press. U.S. Pat. No. 4,862,567 to Beebe, which is incorporated herein by reference, teaches of a seating die which includes inner and outer guide members that are disposed within a housing. The inner guide member is slidably contained within the outer guide member and moves axially between a home position and a stop position. The inner guide member has a contoured upper chamber for receiving a bullet therein. The outer guide member further includes a contoured lower chamber for receiving a shell casing and the lower chamber communicates with a smaller upper chamber of the inner guide member that receives the bullet therein. As a ram moves the bullet and the casing into the die, both the bullet and the casing become firmly seated in their respective chambers. Further movement of the ram causes the inner guide member to contact a first stop, thus arresting the upward motion of the bullet. The second guide member and shell casing, however, are permitted to continue their upward progress until the outer guide contacts a second stop at which time the bullet is well seated within the neck of the shell casing. Although this seating die works quite well for large caliber rifle cartridges with shell casings having a bottle neck configuration, it is not adaptable for use when seating small caliber handgun cartridges wherein the shell casings generally have a straight wall configuration